Stuart Turner, PI: Life Saver
by SassyJ
Summary: An operational mistake changes Stuart's life forever.
1. Chapter 1

"His blood pressure's dropping, we may have to amputate." The paramedic looks up at me. I'm standing there, bruised, battered and terrified, but alive, all because my partner has quick reflexes. And he's paid the price for trying to keep me safe.

The paramedic is asking me to make a decision which will affect the course of my partner's life. He's asking me for permission to take my partner's right leg off just above the knee.

"No," I shake my head, not so much in the negative as trying to clear from my head the mental image of Stuart Turner, permanently crippled because I gave in too quickly. "Please...," my throat is tight, and I choke over the words, "please try. Stuart's strong." He would want me to fight for him.

"If he drops any lower, we'll have no choice. If we amputate, we can save him."

Put in those terms, it sounds so rational. Such a simple choice. Cripple my best friend for the rest of his life because it's the rational choice. Hang on for longer, and risk his life.

I shake my head again. This time it's to cover the fact that I'm shaking like a leaf. I know Stu. It's only now, standing, watching them tear Sierra Oscar Five apart to free him from the wreckage, I realise just how much knowing the man who's my best friend really counts. And the effect it has on me. Because I know him so well, I know he won't cope. So much has fallen on his shoulders in his life.

How did we get here? I shoot a glance across at the rest of the team, at the top brass standing about. I'm seeking out one face. Perhaps it isn't fair to land it all in her lap. But her choice of position put us right in harm's way. Both of us had argued we were in the wrong place, but it was her decision.

It was a box van, weighing in at roughly seven tons, many times the weight of the Toyota. It was running straight at us. Stu flicked the key and the car's engine burst into life; he threw the gear box into reverse and his foot slammed down on the accelerator. We were flying backwards, and then we were flying sideways.

Everything was hazy. I could hear shouting and the sound of running feet. My entire body hurt. I groaned and turned to Stu. It was then I realised his evasive manoeuvre had saved me at his own expense.

Someone hauled the passenger door open, and hands started to check me out. I pushed them away and scrabbled for the seat belt. As my shaking fingers connected with the button, someone must have cut the seatbelt because it fell away from me. I pushed the remains of the airbag out of the way and leaned towards my partner.

"Stu," I whispered.

His eyes opened and he looked at me. I've been a copper for twenty-three years, and have never before seen that much pain and fear in a man's eyes. His lips moved. "Help me," he whispered, his left hand reaching for my hand.

We held onto each other as I prayed for an ambulance and paramedics. I got both. But there was no relief.

He was in a bad way, and I knew it. I didn't need someone to tell me. I didn't need to be asked the question. We had made each other designated decision makers in case of disaster. Stu didn't want his sister to be in that position, and I had agreed to do it.

I never believed that something would happen. I never believed I would be standing beside the wreckage of Sierra Oscar Five and have power over Stuart's future.

I stood and shivered as heavy machinery whined and sparks flew. Watching as they worked to keep him alive and free him from the crushed car. His right side had sustained terrible injuries. His shoulder was dislocated, his collarbone was broken, his arm was broken as was at least two of his ribs, he was bleeding internally, and his leg was badly mangled.

Then suddenly they made it -- the last cut -- and he was free. I folded my arms across my middle and followed the stretcher to the ambulance. I sat in the corner of the ambulance as they fought for his life all the way to hospital.

A nurse was pressing me to get checked out, but I had assumed responsibility for my friend. I have no idea how long I sat there waiting. It didn't really matter; I would see this through, because there was the promise we made to each other and that question hadn't just gone away. It was still hanging over us. I wanted them to save his leg if possible, of course, but if it came down to a final choice, I wanted him alive.

I drank cups of warm brown stuff which might have been coffee, and tried to still my shaking hands. I tried not to imagine the worst. But if I closed my eyes, the whine of machinery, and the flying sparks, and the look in Stu's eyes just before he lost consciousness, all haunted me.

"DC Masters?" The voice was calm, reassuring. I looked up into a kindly face and promptly burst into tears. The surgeon tried to explain all which had been done and how much more was needed, but Stuart's battered body could only take a little at a time. They could have fixed all his injuries at once, but they would literally have operated on him to death. But the real killer was that they couldn't save his leg.

I knew Stu was strong, holding onto life; he would fight, even with his right leg gone just above the knee. That was Stu all over: a stubborn refusal to accept defeat, but how he was going to cope with this I had no idea.

They let me sit with him for a while. He was heavily sedated and swathed in bandages. They had staunched the internal bleeding and put back his shoulder. Then they'd completely immobilised his shoulder and arm, surrounding him with pillows to keep him still in the bed. I eased the plastic visitor's chair up close to him, so I could take his left hand in mine. I tried not to look at the stump, supported by a pillow. The cost of me--hale, hearty and whole--sitting there next to my best friend, was the loss of his leg. Honestly, even now I'm not sure whether I was trying to reassure him that I was there for him, or reassure myself that he was still alive. Survivor's guilt, I suppose.

His fingers did close around my hand, though, so I was glad I'd done it. He knew, on whatever level he could, that I was there for him.

After I was certain he was asleep, I went to do the hardest thing I'd had to do in a long time: tell Jack Meadows that Stuart Turner's career as a frontline officer was probably over. I tried not to break apart, just deliver the bare facts.

I couldn't think about the implications, about the decisions, about Sun Hill, about anything else than being there for the man who had saved my life.

They granted me compassionate leave, and in the days that followed I did a lot of sitting, hand-holding and worrying. He was strong and stubborn, but he was also very seriously injured, giving me a couple of scares along the way.

As Stu's decision maker, I had access; as his partner I could no more have left him alone to face this than flown. His sister came as often as she could. She was devastated, but between us we worked out how we were going to tell him.

It was four days before he was sufficiently lucid to question what was going on. I told him the truth as gently as I could. I watched him cave, I held onto his hand as he fought for control, then I kicked off my boots, slipped up onto the bed next to him and put my arms around his neck, and he just dissolved into me. I rested my cheek against the top of his head, whilst his tears soaked the front of my shirt, and wished there had been something I could have done to prevent it.

Finally the flood's over. He's burrowed against me. He's weak, exhausted and hurting. I don't do men. I'm gay. But I gently put my fingers under his chin and tilt his face up. We just look at each other for a second. And then our lips meet.

This isn't about sex. It's a promise. We need each other, Stuart and I, and I'm not going to desert him.


	2. Chapter 2

After a week, Stu was moved from intensive care; he was entitled to a room on his own, but opted for the ward, to stay with other amputees. Gradually, half of Sun Hill started to troop round to see him, which was when I realised that his life was _never_ going to be the same.

Sam, Stevie and Grace covered up the situation by never mentioning his stump. Terry, Mickey, Will and Max opted for the jokey-blokey approach. Stu alternated between wanting someone to acknowledge what he was going through and trying to fit in with their preconceptions. But somehow the gulf between him and the others started to grow wider. I watched the barrier grow between him and our colleagues and wondered what I could do to help.

It took Phil Hunter, of all people, to break the ice.

It was a hot day, about a fortnight after he'd been admitted. They'd switched off the lights, all the windows were open on the ward and Stu had pushed his sheet and blankets down, his bandaged stump on full view to anyone who cared to look. I arrived fairly early, when we'd had a talk with the surgeon about how he was doing; the general feeling about his progress was that he was doing well. The way Stu viewed it, his leg was gone; he had to fight back with whatever he had. What he found difficult to deal with was how others treated him.

Stevie and Grace were first, bringing fruit in with them. They sat down and commenced the usual idle chitchat about station stuff. I noticed that neither of them actually looked at his leg at all. In some ways that was okay in itself, but part of Stu's problem in coping was the apparent inability of our colleagues to talk to him about what had happened.

Then, suddenly, we were inundated: the male contingent of CID, together with Neil, then Sam and Phil.

After Stu had been loaded up with fruit, flowers and cards, there was a brief moment of vaguely awkward silence. Phil stepped forward into the breach. "Here you go, mate." He handed Stu a bundle of leaflets. There was a sudden sharp intake of breath and a sudden ominous silence, as Stu looked at the leaflets in his hand.

"Phil!" snapped Sam, giving her former lover a frosty glare.

"Well, I figured since that try-out for the Hammers was no longer on the cards, I'd better bring something useful!" Phil smirked.

I jerked my eyes away from the brochure Phil had given Stu, to Stu's face. There were tears streaming down his cheeks, but when he looked up at Phil again, his grin was ear to ear.

"Thanks, mate." Stu's voice was slightly hoarse, and if there was the vaguest suspicion of a wobble in the tone, Phil effected not to notice. I looked at the limb-fitting information in Stu's lap, and realised that in many ways, I'd been guilty of ignoring the gorilla in the room too. The injury wasn't the real problem. It was everyone treating him as though he was suddenly made of glass which emphasized the difference.

Stu was hurt, and his life had been permanently altered, but if people still treated him exactly the way they had before the crash, he could face the difficulties.

Phil hitched a hip and parked himself on the end of Stu's bed, pretty much exactly where Stu's right foot would have been, and they started to talk about prosthetic limbs as though Phil was suddenly the expert. I looked at the big cheesy grin on Stu's face. He was happy, the ice was broken. Phil Hunter, his biggest rival, was treating him like a human being rather than an object of curiosity and pity.

_And his friends hadn't managed to do so._

As we were going home, I caught up with Phil in the car park. "Phil... I..." He looked at me. Then he stepped forward, and swept me into a hug, "I bet no one's even bothered to ask you how you feel?"

I put my arms around his neck and cuddled in close. I'm not the weeping type, but the gentle sympathy in his voice just opened up that little gap.

"Hey..." he stroked my hair gently, "I didn't mean to cause a breakdown."

"Phil..."

"Look, you two are close; I was never exactly Stuart Turner's biggest fan, but even I wouldn't wish this on the guy." His arms were round me and he was stroking my hair. Just for that moment, I gave in. The stress of being there for Stu was tough enough, and I needed this. "Besides..." he put a hand under my chin and tilted my face up, we gazed at each other for a second, "I actually feel sorry for Stu. He's being a lot tougher about this than I could be."

I hugged Phil back with real fervour. It had taken four years and a catastrophe, but suddenly I felt as though being friends with both of them wasn't being slightly disloyal to the other. I no longer had to choose. It was such a tiny thing, but the relief was immense.

Tiny things were just fine right then. "Pub?" I queried.

"Thought you would never ask." He grinned.

"And Phil," I took his hand and squeezed it gently, "What you just did for Stu... it meant so much to him... Thanks."


	3. Chapter 3

We were naked, lying side by side on my bed. My eyes swept over his body, my hand caressing his side, down over his hip, his thigh... my fingers, gentle and not the least bit self-conscious, stroking his stump. Those beautiful dark eyes watched me, and I watched the emotions change in his expression. The clouds of anxiety were chased away by the sunshine of love.

This wasn't about the differences between us, or just about sex. Men are not my preference, but my best friend is the exception. If I'm being brutally honest here, my relationship with Stuart Turner is the closest friendship I've had in my life in a very long time.

From the moment Phil Hunter dropped limb-fitting information in his lap, that was the turnaround for Stu. He saw the prosthetic as the chance to be whole again. I worried that this illusion was too important to him, that the fear of being maimed and his subsequent appearance was preying on his mind.

The truth? I didn't want my best friend to wind up alone, because he'd pushed everyone out of his personal life, so frightened of their responses to his limb loss.

It was more than that, though. Stuart Turner had been getting under my skin for a long time. Once we assumed responsibility for each other, the dynamics between us changed. The changes were subtle, nothing you would particularly notice; but this _was_ about love and trust. We needed each other, and it really was that simple.

Reaching out, Stu placed a hand on my waist. I loved the hesitancy in his expression, the softened look in his eyes which wanted and needed but did not demand. He had always been a mass of contradictions, the arrogance a cover for how much he really cared; he was good, and he knew it. So there was always this slight push and pull between the private Stuart and his carefully contrived public persona.

I took the initiative and slid closer, his arm curved around my waist, and he pulled me up against him. Now we were nose to nose. "Hello," I whispered, tracing down the bridge of his nose with my index finger, his hand sliding up to cover mine, and he planted a kiss in my palm. I slid my arms around his neck as we leaned into each other.

_We made long, slow, passionate love together. Words were fine, but showing him that he was still attractive to me mattered as much as anything I could tell him. During the months of hospitalisation and rehabilitation, limb fittings, teaching him to walk again, he had held himself together. I don't know if he was simply being brave, or if something else was driving him, but I was so proud of his achievements._

He held me so tenderly, the love in his eyes enveloping me, and I rested my head against his shoulder. I realised that it wasn't just Stuart who needed to accept the loss of his leg, but me too. I needed to accept my part in it, that the loss of Stu's leg wasn't my fault. We'd grown closer over the weeks which had led to this point, and I realised something else: that somewhere in all the stress, muddle and mess that had taken over our lives, that something good had come out of all that pain. We now knew we loved each other.

Gentle fingers slid into my hair, and I looked up into his face. "You know... I wouldn't change a thing," he told me.

I knew what he meant, but if I could have turned back time, I would have tried to do more to argue our case. Anything which would have spared Stu what he had been put through. I frowned a little. "I would... you know... if I could." I searched his eyes, but all I could see reflected back at me was love.


End file.
